The Last Greatest Tip For Longevity..
Don’t get out of the sun!
I know, all you hear about is put that sunscreen on and get out of the sun because it will cause cancer.
But the facts are that if you don’t get at least 10 to 15 minutes of sunlight , you won’t be making vitamin D, and having adequate vitamin D3 levels can drastically reduce your risk of colon and breast cancer.
The researchers, from the Moore’s Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), estimated that by increasing vitamin D3 levels, particularly in countries north of the equator, 250,000 cases of colorectal cancer, and 350,000 cases of breast cancer could be prevented worldwide.
In all, that amounts to 600,000 cases of breast and colorectal cancer prevented, including close to 150,000 in the U.S. alone. Such figures are astounding!
This flies in the face of most public health statements. Could it be that sunscreen companies, Big Pharma concoctions, could have a stake in that statement?
That is for you to decide.
It is more than worth your time to analyze your belief about this topic because if you choose wrong, you could easily leave this world decades before your time.
I’m not saying to go hog wild and just stay in the sun all day. Be reasonable, use you head and start by getting used to the sun in little doses.
It’s good to start early in the year, in the spring and early summer. This will prepare your skin for the stronger sunlight later in the year. Early morning is, for similar reasons, the best time to sunbathe if you are not used to sunlight, because there is less chance of burning than there is later in the day.
In addition, it’s best to sunbathe when the temperature is below 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius), so that you don’t overheat.
Regular sunbathing is extremely important; you can’t cram all of your sun exposure into a two or three week vacation period and expect to experience the benefits.
When you do sunbathe, it’s also important to treat it as a medicine and control the dosage; frequent, short periods of exposure are best.
If you overindulge or skip too many days, it can be dangerous. Regular exposure protects against skin cancer, but intermittent exposure can actually increase the danger.
If you are Caucasian, getting 20 minutes of ultraviolet exposure is good. If your skin is darkly pigmented, you may need 3 to 6 times longer.
But the above recommendation is very dependent upon where you live and the quality of sunlight you get..
At all costs, avoid sunburn. That’s the culprit that causes free radical damage of the skin and can lead to skin cancer.
How do the benefits of sunlight so vastly outweigh the risks?
First of all, Vitamin D is entirely different from any other vitamin you have heard of because it is not really a vitamin at all, but a prohormone that your body actually produces from cholesterol.
Being a prohormone, it influences the entire body and regular exposure to UVB from sunlight (which in turn increases your vitamin D levels) reduces your risk of the following diseases:
- Osteoporosis
- Diabetes
- Heart disease
- Hypertension
- Multiple sclerosis
- Psoriasis
- Schizophrenia
- Rickets
- Myopathy
- Tuberculosis
What you may not realize is that having lots of antioxidants in your skin plays a major role in your development of sunburn. The more antioxidants you take in, the lower your risk of sunburn.
The only thing to watch out for is over-exposure.
There is little to no evidence that sun exposure without sunburn increases your risk of melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer.
However, there is more evidence that sun exposure without sunburns can actually decrease melanoma incidences.
You can also help your body internally by getting antioxidants from eating whole organic fruits and vegetables.
Without taking a book to explain the reasons why the sun is good for you and why sunscreens actually block you from making vitamin D, just know that the sun is a life saver and not a life taker and is essential if you wish to live to a ripe old age.
